The veil of antisemitism

CNN tonight, Kayleigh McEnany and Steven Goldstein, the executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect.

Kayleigh McEnany: "For those wanting to give the president a fair chance, you would have heard him condemning antisemitism. I have his exact quote from the first time he was asked this question. He said, 'I want peace in this country, I want to stop crime and long-simmering racism.' That sounds like a condemnation to me. But some people on the left are using the veil of antisemitism and the charge of antisemitism to further their own political causes. It's dangerous. I agree with Alan Dershowitz fully that we should not be loosely throwing this term around. I've got to ask you straight on - so you think that the president does not like Jews and is prejudiced against Jews? You think that about the President of the United States?"

So we were supposed to divine from Trump's word salad that he was condemning antisemitism, when he didn't even use the word? "Peace." "Crime" "Long-simmering racism."

And here we see someone from the right making exactly the same argument as the anti-Israel left - that Jews (that's what she means by "some people on the left") use antisemitism for their own (impure) purposes. The BDS left accuses Jews of crying antisemitism in order to supposedly "stifle" criticism of Israel. In this case, she's accusing Jews of crying antisemitism in order to criticize Donald Trump. Both are cases of bad faith. They deny Jews the right to determine for ourselves what antisemitism is - a right generally given to those who are the targets of prejudice and discrimination. Instead, both arrogate to themselves the right to decide what is antisemitic and what is not - since it's too dangerous for Jews to possess that power themselves.